What is it ?

themes are split into 'look' themes and 'feel' themes. 'Look' themes change
colors and visual aspect of the window manager, and 'feel' themes change the
way you move or place windows, open the menus, etc.

you can change the background image used with the current look theme using a
menu generated from the images stored in the 'Backgrounds' directory.

adding a new theme is as easy as unpacking it in the Themes-Look or
Themes-Feel directory and restarting ctwm.

How does it work ?

The CTS package provides a .ctwm directory you must place in your home
directory.

This directory provides a ctwmrc file that will include other configuration
files from the 'include' directory and from the themes directories. Using the
m4 preprocessor, the configuration files will read the 'Themes-Look' and
'Themes-Feel' directories and the 'Backgrounds' directory and generate menus
allowing you to switch themes and background images.

When you choose a theme in the menus, CTWM calls the "settheme" script that
simply change the $HOME/.ctwm/Themes-*/Current link to the new selected theme
directory.

The wallpapers are switched using the "setbg" script that change the root
window's wallpaper, and place a link to the image in the directory of the
current look theme.

The script supports multiple screens, so if you have multiple screens, using
the menu will change the wallpaper of the current screen.

Why did you wrote this ?

I wrote this because I like to change the look of my destop depending on my mood.
This way, I can quickly select different colors, or a different background, and use
it again the next time I log in.

I also thought this was a nice way to help ctwm users to use nice
layouts even if they don't want to write their own ctwmrc. This can be
a way to incite new users to use this great window manager.

What do I need to use this system ?

To use this themes system, you only need ctwm compiled with m4
support and the m4 package installed.

By default, CTS also uses xsetbg from the xloadimage package to
change the background image, but you can change it in the setbg
script.

How do I install this system ?

backup your ctwm configuration file (if you have one) :

$ mv $HOME/.ctwmrc $HOME/.ctwmrc_backup

untar the CTS tar ball in your home directory, you will get a .ctwm directory :

$ tar xvjf cts-0.x.tar.bz2

add a link to the system's ctwmrc, for example using this command line :

$ ln -s $HOME/.ctwm/ctwmrc $HOME/.ctwmrc

Optionnally put the part of your ctwm configuration you want to keep in
the inclue/local.rc file, or even better create a new look theme and feel
theme (and don't forget to send it to me to share it with everyone).

Restart CTWM.

You're done. You should now be able to switch themes and wallpapers from the
menus. New themes will appear automatically in the menu after unpacking them
in the $HOME/.ctwm/Themes-Look for look themes and $HOME/.ctwm/Themes-Feel for
feel theme, and restarting CTWM. The same with your backgrounds images in
$HOME/.ctwm/Backgrounds.

CTS themes

You will find below some themes I wrote for CTS.
They're indented to be a base for you own theme, so don't hesitate to create
your theme by copying and modifying one of them. You'll find many comments in
the theme files, especially in the Flatmodern-gold and AutoRaiser themes.
Consult the ctwm man page too, it's a great reference.

To install a new theme, simply untar the theme in your Themes
directory (.ctwm/Themes-Look or
.ctwm/Themes-Feel). Assuming your new theme distribution
is newtheme.tar.bz2 and is located in your home
directory, you can use the follwing line :

$ cd $HOME/.ctwm/Themes-Look; tar xvjf ../../newtheme.tar.bz2

Note: The wallpapers images being independant from
the theme (althought the system remember the last image used with each
theme), the wallpapers images shown on the screenshots are not
included in the theme distribution.